Today is Lá Fhéile Míchíl or St Michael’s Day or Michaelmas which is celebrated annually on today, September 29th,2022.
Same date was once an important Fair Day in the Irish farming calendar, as well as featuring in Ireland’s Administrative and Legal year Calendar, [Michaelmas Term – October to December].
Back in the 19th-century, it was traditional for Dublin bakers to gift a ‘Barmbrack‘ (latter a yeast bread with added sultanas and raisins. Irish: bairín breac – translated to English “speckled bread”) to their customers on the feast of Michaelmas.
Alas, no Barmbracks were being handed out either today by Bank of Ireland branches, who have been fined a final total of €100.5m by the Central Bank, with regards its handling of tracker mortgage customers. Initially the Central Bank fined Bank of Ireland €143.6m, but same was reduced by 30% under its settlement discount scheme. Same fine is, to date, the largest fine ever imposed on any financial institution, by the Irish Central Bank.
Some 15,910 tracker mortgage customer accounts had been impacted by the bank’s actions, between August 2004 and June 2022, same resulting in the loss of 50 properties, including 25 family homes.
In all Bank of Ireland has admitted in full to 81 separate regulatory breaches.
It was found that Bank of Ireland provided unclear contractual documents to its customers, failed to interpret its unclear contractual documents in customer’s best interests and failed to warn customers regarding the consequences of decisions, relating to their mortgages.
It also implemented what was considered to be an unfair complaint handling practice in relation to customers, and had deficient mortgage systems and controls, which had contributed to a significant number of operational errors.
Leave a Reply